Granville between Clark and Broadway, four blocks, a half mile, has two schools, two churches a mosque, a theater two bus stops and a Divvy. Kids, parishioners, viewers, bikers and cabbies at many hours of the day, on foot and pedal and in their cars. Two more blocks to the west are traffic circles. And to the east is a small downtown with restaurants, groceries, drugstore, high-rises, a lake-front park and an el-stop.
This stretch of Granville between Ridge and Shreridan is an urban environment of the highest quality. I cannot tell you the number of times I have either waited on a crossing guard protecting children or driven slowly behind a biker because there is not enough room to pass safely.Because so much going on forces cars to navigate cautiously it has become a favored biking route by many.
It is time to give it an official status such as an Urban Greenway.
Lets change the paradigm from a street that tolerates pedestrians and bikers to one that tolerates cars. Lets put the bikers in the middle of the lane rather than off to the edge where they tempt cars to pass. Lets make it formal that cars are not allowed to pass bikers, no matter how slowly they may be going. Lets put down paint and cobble together crosswalks with texture that make the new sharing dynamic clear as day. Lets pass the ordinances needed to radically reduce the automobile speed limit.
Lets bring together the experts already existing within the cycling community who know what cutting edge design looks like with the alderman, Harry Osterman, and the experts within CDOT who are themselves at the cutting edge of complete streets design.
Granville can become a synergistic part of a Greenway already proposed for Glenwood. We have here an opportunity to do something that once again puts Edgewater firmly on the forefront of urban design.
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Scroll Down Past the Map for two illustrative pictures.
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https://twitter.com/wckoehler/status/759119739679608832
"bike street - cars are guests". These are popping up all over Utrecht, including this one, created a few weeks ago.
8 comments:
Nice idea. Any update on the Glenwood greenway?
@ aweg Not that I am aware of. These sorts of things tend to languish and move at some kind of pace that only those having lived the life of an Aldermanic staffer understands.
Many of us believe that we can influence that pace with sufficient community organization and involvement. Whether it is true or not, such community efforts are often worthwhile in and of themselves regardless of the desired goals.
If you are in the neighborhood and have interest let me know.
Eloquent explanation for why Granville is a preferred east west connection for many cyclists & slow moving traffic. I will be the Community Representative for the North Side on the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Council over the next 2 years & would appreciate you following up with an email regarding this, Glenwood, & other Far North Side bike & pedestrian issues.
I assume that the email I have provided for logging in is visible to you, but if not I will try to find another way to connect with you.
@jake Good question Jake. Blogger does not seem to provide a mechanism for us to communicate anonymously. Or maybe there is but I don't know it. Try 2139 (at) eroscoe (dot) com
Totally agree that Granville would make a great neighborhood greenway.
@Jeff I live on Glenwood just north of Devon and I'm very much looking forward to the installation of of greenways on glenwood and greenview in the 49th and glenwood in the 48th. It's been 8 or 9 months since cdot presented the design proposals at ward meetings and I haven't heard anything since. I'd love to hear you thoughts on what can be done to move these projects forward.
@aweg email me at 2139 (at) eroscoe (dot) com
Granville is also an excellent route to get to the North Shore Channel Trail and would benefit from a bicycle right of way from the LFT via Winthrop/Kenmore.
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